As is known, cell penetration of antitumour drugs can be enhanced considerably by means of electric pulses applied using special needles.
“Electrochemotherapy” is a new technique currently used to locally treat and control cutaneous or subcutaneous tumours.
Electrochemotherapy combines two effects:                administration of small doses of drug (bleomycin or cisplatin); and        electroporation of cell membranes.        
Increasing permeability allow non- or poorly permeating drugs or other molecules to penetrate the cytoplasm of cancerous cells to achieve greater effectiveness.
Electrochemotherapy is indicated for primary skin tumours (basal and squamous cell carcinomas), single or in-transit metastasis of melanomas, and cutaneous metastasis of other tumours, regardless of histology.
The latest technology as applied to electrochemotherapy gives particularly good results using electric pulses of 1 Hz or 5 kHz frequency, which reduces the number of muscle contractions induced by electric stimulus, and improves patient treatment tolerance. Moreover, repetition of high-frequency pulses reduces treatment time.
Electric pulses of over 1000 V have also been found to give excellent results in terms of drug absorption.
Patient tolerance is also improved for the following reasons:                minimum side effects, so the treatment can be repeated;        no functional organ impairment and no effect on surrounding healthy tissue;        immediate recovery.        
“Electroporation” is normally induced using electrodes connected electrically to equipment for generating pulses of the above frequencies and voltages.
Various types of electrodes have been designed to treat different skin areas, by precise distribution of the applied electric field.
The types of electrodes currently used are:                a plate electrode for surface tumours;        an electrode with parallel rows of needles for small, deep-seated tumours;        an electrode with hexagonally arranged needles for large, deep-seated tumours.        
The electrodes are fixed to the distal end of rigid, oblong handsets gripped, in use, by the operator.
Currently used rigid handsets are excellent for treating easily accessible skin tumours, but pose serious problems, substantially on account of their rigid structure, when treating less accessible parts of the body, such as the tongue, palate, gums, the first part of the respiratory system, and accessible cavities.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an alternative to rigid handsets, for use in electroporation treatment. The teachings of the present invention, however, also apply, with obvious variations within the scope of any average technician, to other fields, such as internal microcamera examination of the human body.
A microcamera may also be applied to an electroporation device to permit real-time monitoring of the treatment in progress.
The starting point of the present invention was the realization that an operator's finger, in particular the index finger of the right hand (assuming, of course, the operator is right-handed) represents an exceptional natural “handset”, which is versatile, articulated, and sensitive enough for applications necessarily requiring a non-rigid instrument with five degrees of freedom.
An inventive “thimble” was therefore devised, equipped with active means (e.g. needle electrodes), and designed to fit onto the end (tip) phalanx of the operator's finger.
An extremely versatile “tool”, comprising the operator's finger and the equipped thimble, is thus obtained, which is able to operate successfully in even the most inaccessible and hidden parts of the patient's body that are difficult, if not impossible, to operate on using conventional handsets.